Question - I have two littermate cats whom I adopted as kittens in 1997. One was diagnosed with chronic renal failure (CRF) last March when he stopped eating dry cat food. He didn't eat much at all through April until I gave him Nature's Variety Instinct Raw Frozen Diet chicken. He ate one to two medallions per day along with some Temptations treats and a little milk. He tried to eat high-quality canned food by licking the liquid, but he always went back to the raw. Now my non-CRF cat also prefers frozen raw. Are my cats showing that frozen raw is a better cat food, especially for the CRF cat? Is it better for the kidneys?

Answer - You can thank your cat for showing you what will help improve his health. He is exercising what I call his "innate nutritional wisdom," which is so often thrown off when cats become addicted to certain manufactured cat foods, especially dry kibble. Dry food has been implicated in some kinds of CRF and lower urinary tract problems. For more details, see the new paperback edition of "Not Fit for a Dog." I have long advocated whole foods for cats and dogs, and that includes frozen raw and freeze-dried raw foods.

Always give your pet probiotics, and transition him or her slowly over a seven- to 10-day period from conventional diets to the better ones, like those on my website, DrFoxVet.com. Some believe that because of its close ties with some of the big pet food manufacturers that see the raw food movement as a threat, the American Veterinary Medical Association, of which I am an Honor Roll member, has come out in opposition to raw food diets because of alleged public health concerns over bacterial contamination.

But the fact is that cooking does not kill all these potential pathogens, and most pet food recalls due to salmonella and other bacterial contamination are with dry foods and treats, and rarely with the frozen raw foods!

The following PetfoodIndustry.com statement was given after the industry posted findings from tests it conducted to determine the accuracy of content labeling: "As in the human food industry, this type of mislabeling is typically not intentional on the part of the manufacturer. Rather, it is most often the result of mistakes during formulation or the receipt of mislabeled product from a supplier."